I was reading about the boat full of people looking for a better life that hit the rocks near Porto Bisco when the south wind was flying from the tropics and how people fell into the foaming water as the boat foundered and how a few – very few – people dove from the shore and tried to save their lives. But the part of the interview with one of the rescuers that stays with me is this.

Interviewer: Some of the people you saved – do you know how many it was? Three children and two adults – say you told them you loved them, that you used your breath to tell them you loved them while you were fighting the sea, you told them that you loved them. And they all understood what you were saying because you told them in French, in Italian, in English.

Rescuer: Yes, I shouted to them as I tried to pull them through the water, as I tried to stop them thrashing, as I tried to unzip their coats, as I tried to pull their freezing fingers from my throat. I shouted. I shouted “je t’aime, ti amo, I love you. Je t’aime, ti amo, I love you”. I shouted in their ears if I could get my mouth near enough or I shouted it through the spray in the frozen air. I shouted and I gulped air and I spat and I coughed salt water. Shouted and shouted and shouted. Why? Because I thought they were going to die, they would sink through my fingers and the waves and the foam and sink to the bottom of the sea with the crabs and the eels. I thought I could not save them. I thought they were going to die.

And if you are going to die, what are the words you want to hear as you die? That somebody loves you “je t’aime, ti amo, I love you”. So I shouted so if they slipped to the bottom of the sea with the crabs and the eels then at least the last words that they would hear would be that somebody loved them – not their father or mother or sister or brother but somebody, somebody.

And I was fighting with the waves and fighting with their coats and fighting with their frozen fingers at my throat but my head was elsewhere. My thoughts were clear and above me, not fighting with the waves at all. And I thought – but where are they from? And maybe they speak French and maybe Italian and maybe everyone speaks English so my thoughts made me shout “je t’aime, ti amo, I love you”. And perhaps it could have been better if they were about to die if I shouted “Dieu t’aime, Dio ti ama, God loves you” but I just could not do it because I just did not know, so a person, a person, so “je t’aime, ti amo, I love you”, the last words they would hear.